Mommy's Best Games, Inc. is an independent game developer founded in 2007. Our seventh game, currently in development, is Pig Eat Ball on which we started working in 2013. This is behind the scenes thoughts about game development and marketing.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Serious Sam Double D is a 2D side-scrolling version of the popular and looney Serious Sam franchise, and will be ready for you to play later this summer on your PC!

When designing Double D, rather than dump all of Croteam's original guns and start from scratch I decided it'd be fun to take on the biggest of Mental's baddies with all your guns blazing at once. The way you'll get to do that is with the Gun Stacker system.

A Gun Stacker connector arm

Hidden throughout all sorts of sneaky places you'll find a Gun Stacker connector piece. This is a small robotic arm, that when applied, not only allows you to hold an extra gun, it also connects the firing of the second gun to the primary gun. (Squeeze the trigger and all your guns start firing, throttled only by refire and reload times.)

Thompson Submachine gun

You'll collect not only the classic Shotgun, Tommy Gun, and Rocket Launcher from Serious Sam, you'll get to collect MULTIPLE OF EACHGUN.

You know how it's fun to a hidden rocket launcher early in the game, but when you finally, "officially" are given the rocket launcher it's sort of a let down, because.. well.. you already have it!

Say good by the to that sorry feeling! If you scour a level for secrets, find the Tommy Gun early, then you not only have the Tommy Gun, you'll have the chance to collect up to four Tommy Guns! That goes for each weapon type--there are 4 of each hidden throughout Serious Sam Double D.

XL4 Lasergun

So now you've got tons of guns, and tons of connectors what do you do with them? Get all crafty and start sticking them together into various, explosive combinations!

Here is an early peak at the Gun Stacker configuration menu (Bear with me, I'll try to make it sexier before the game's done).

Above is a "standard" view of a quick select. You can see the Machine Pistol, the Shotgun, the Tommy Gun, and the Grenade Launcher. (And an extra Tommy Gun in your Inventory at the bottom, but that's for later!)

To stack your guns all you have to do is select a gun like the Shotgun here, move it over that stack and press the button again to confirm the Stack. Done! Super stack-a-ola, Shotgun-Tommy duo ready. But wait--we've got more connectors (upper right), looks like we have 2 of 3 still left! Can't let those got to waste.

The Machine Pistol has infinite ammo, so whatever stack you put that it in, it sort of gets a 'free boost' in as much as that gun doesn't reload and can't run out of ammunition. Type II Machine Pistol's hidden throughout the game are very special and very challenging to obtain!

Let's just go full epicurean and stack 2 Tommys, a Shotgun and the Machine Pistol in one heap. We've exhausted our connectors, but it'll be pretty powerful.

But our Grenade Launcher is looking lonely. If we select it and try to add it to the stack it won't work as we need an extra connector.

But we can remove a Tommy gun from the other stack and put it on the Grenade launcher. That's a nice combo as it covers you with fast, repeating fire from the Tommy, which fills in the gaps on the very powerful, but slow-to-reload Grenade Launcher.

What's all this look like? Let's take a peak!

Click to zoom in!

Here Sam is blasting a Minor Biomechanoid in the face with the Shotgun/Tommy/Pistol stack, while a mass of seething Gnarr and Kleer claw at him from behind.

So that's all fine and good--the sort of elementary Gun Stacking your little brother might do. But what kind of disgusting, orgiastic displays of male bravado are in store for those who able to survive later into the game?

Here we have a gun collection as you'll see further into the game. You've got 8 connectors to play around with and a silly amount of firepower.

And here's Sam with a real Gun Stack taking on more classic Sam baddies:

Now why would you need all these guns you might ask? First of all when dozens of slathering one-eyed Gnarr are climbing over their dead brethren trying to rip your face off, the more bullets you can shoot, the better. And secondly, you noticed the big blue alien about 5 times the size of Sam? He's called a Minor Biomechanoid for a reason.

That's it for now, but be ready as we've got lots of fresh, new, gigantic enemies in Serious Sam Double D, that will require every bit of firepower you can Stack together. Now, back to the game-making!

UPDATE: Here are some new screenshots of the Gunstacker menu system:

Here are some gun stacks, in the new menu.

And here's a *lot* of guns in the new menu.

Remember you can reconfigure your stacks any time! Just make sure you have found enough connectors.